Merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water. The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska.

The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States.

Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife, could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

Members of the crews of these early visitors were left at the islands either as agents for their ships or their owners, with instructions to learn the language and to collect cargoes of sandalwood, supplies, etc., or as deserters. (Cartwright)

“In the more precise terminology of the anthropologist (a beachcomber) is a regional variety of the world-wide class of individuals called by Hallowell ‘transculturites’…

“… persons who, throughout history, ‘are temporarily or permanently detached from one group, enter the web of social relations that constitute another society, and come under the influence of its customs, ideas and values to a greater or lesser degree’.” (Maude)

John Mackey (or M’Key), the first of the modern Hawai‘i beachcombers, had signed on at Bombay in 1785 as surgeon of the fur-trading vessel Captain Cook.

Left behind at King George’s Sound partly because of ill-health and partly to act as local agent, he soon became Indianized, being described as “equally slovenly and dirty with the filthiest of them all.” He was thus no amateur beachcomber when he landed in Hawai‘i. (Maude)

“John M’Key … was born in Ireland, and went to Bombay in the East India Company’s service. Two vessels (viz. the Captain Cook, Captain Loriè; and the Experiment, Captain Guise) were fitting out in 1785, on an expedition to the North West coast of America; that he engaged on board the Captain Cook as Surgeon.”

“They sailed from Bombay the 28th of November, 1785, and arrived at King George’s Sound the 27th of June, 1786. That being very ill of a purple fever (M’Key) was left behind for the recovery of his health, at the request of Mr. Strange, the Supercargo to both vessels.”

“Mr. Strange desired him to learn the language and to ingratiate himself with the natives, so that if any other vessels should touch there he might prevent them from purchasing any furs, promising at the same time to return for him the ensuing spring.”

“That the two vessels procured 600 prime sea otter skins during their stay here, and left the Sound the 27th of July, intending to sail for Cook’s River.”

“That the Sea Otter, Captain Hanna, from China, arrived at King George’s Sound in August, 1786, and that Captain Hanna offered to take (M’Key) on board, which he refused, alledging, that he began to relish dried fish and whale oil, was satisfied with his way of life, and perfectly contented to stay ’till next year, when he had no doubt of Mr. Strange sending for him …”

“… that Captain Hanna left the Sound in September. That the natives had stripped him of his cloaths, and obliged him to adopt their mode of dress and filthiness of manners; and that he was now a perfect master of their language, and well acquainted with their temper and disposition.”

“He had made frequent incursions into the interior parts of the country about King George’s Sound, and did not think any part of it was the Continent of America, but a chain of detached islands.”

“Mr. Etches assured me that no great dependance could be placed on M’Key’s story, he being a very ignorant young fellow, and frequently contradicting himself …”

“… but that entire credit might be given to that part of it respecting his adopting the manners of the natives, as he was equally slovenly and dirty with the filthiest of them all.”

“His knowledge of the language was greatly short of what he boasted; neither was he very contented in his situation, for he gladly embraced Captain Berkley’s offer of taking him on board, and seemed delighted to think he was going to leave so uncomfortable a place …”

“… however, admitting him to be possessed of but an ordinary capacity, he certainly must be better acquainted with the people here, from more than a year’s residence amongst them, than any occasional visitor could possibly be ; and there can be no doubt but that Captain Berkley found him extremely useful in managing his traffic with the natives.” (Dixon)

“In 1787, or less than ten years after the death of Cook, the Irish ship’s surgeon John Mackey, formerly in the East India Company’s service, was landed in Hawaii from the Imperial Eagle, en route to China, at his own request.” He may be considered the first foreigner to live in the Islands.

“Within a year he had been joined by three deserters – Ridler, carpenter’s mate of the Columbia; Thomas; and a youth named Samuel Hitchcock”

“Most of the early Europeans congregated on Hawaii itself, around the chief Kamehameha, who was quick to realise their importance to his plan for conquering the other islands; there were at least 11 with him in 1794.” (Maude)

In the Islands, as in New France (Canada to Louisiana (1534,)) New Spain (SW and Central North America to Mexico and Central America (1521)) and New England (NE US,) the trader preceded the missionary.

For a generation previous to 1820 New England seamen had found rest, healing and even profit in the Islands.

When US independence closed the colonial trade routes within the British empire, the merchantmen and whalers of New England swarmed around the Horn, in search of new markets and sources of supply.

The opening of the China trade was the first and most spectacular result of this enterprise; the establishment of trading relations with Hawai‘i followed shortly.

Years before the westward land movement gathered momentum, the energies of seafaring New Englanders found their natural outlet, along their traditional pathway, in the Pacific Ocean.

Probably the first American vessel to touch at Hawai‘i was the famous Columbia of Boston, Capt. Robert Gray, on August 24, 1789, in the course of her first voyage around the world. She remained twenty-four days at the Islands, salted down five puncheons of pork, and sailed with one hundred and fifty live hogs on deck.

A young native called Attoo, who shipped there as ordinary seaman, attracted much attention at Boston, on the Columbia’s return, by his gorgeous feather cloak and helmet.

Attoo was the first of several young Hawaiians who, arriving in New England as seamen on merchant vessels, influenced the American Board of Foreign Missions to found the Mission School at Cornwall, Connecticut, which was the origin of the famous mission of 1819-20.

Captain Amasa Delano brought a young Hawaiian boy (whom Delano named ’Bill’,) arriving in Boston on November 2, 1801. (Carr)

“He performed on the Boston stage several times, in the tragedy of Capt. Cook, and was much admired by the audience and the publick in general.” (Delano)

The Boston traders who followed the Columbia to the Northwest Coast and Canton, found ‘The Islands,’ as they called the Hawaiian group, an ideal place to procure fresh provisions, in the course of their three-year voyages.

Capt. Joseph Ingraham stopped there in the Hope, of Boston, in May, 1792. Five months later, Captain Gray, fresh from his discovery of the Columbia River, ‘Made the Isle of Owhyhee, one of the Sandwich Islands,’ writes John Boit, Jr, the 17-year-old fifth mate of this vessel.

(October 30, 1792) “Hove to, for some Canoes, and purchased 11 Hogs from the Natives, and plenty of vegetables, such as Sweet Potatoes, Yams, tarro, etc. These Canoes was very neatly made, but quite narrow. The Outrigger kept them steady, or else, I think, they wou’d too easily upset in the Sea.”

Off Kealakekua Bay: “Some double Canoes came alongside. These was suspended apart by large rafters, well supported. The Masts were rig’d between the canoes, and they carried their mat sails a long time, sailing very fast. The Shore was lined with people. “

(October 31, 1792) “Stood round the Island and hau’d into Toaj yah yah bay, 194 and hove to. Vast many canoes sailing in company with us. The shore made a delightful appearance, and appeared in the highest state of cultivation. Many canoes along side, containing beautiful Women.”

“Plenty of Hogs and fowls, together with most of the Tropical fruits in abundance, great quantities of Water, and Musk, Mellons, Sugar Cane, Bread fruit, and salt was brought for sale. The price of a large Hog was from 5 to 10 spikes — smaller ones in proportion. 6 Dunghill fowls for an Iron Chizzle, and fruit cheaper still.” (Boit)

It did not take long for the Northwest Coast fur traders to discover at Hawai‘i a new medium for the Canton market. That market was, of course, the prime object of our Northwest fur trade.

China took nothing that the US produced; hence Boston traders, in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase teas and silks at Canton, spent 18-months or more of each China voyage collecting a cargo of sea-otter skins, highly esteemed by the mandarins.

Salem traders, in the same quest for the wealth of the Indies, resorted to various South Sea Islands for edible birds’ nests, and beche de mer or trepang, a variety of sea-cucumber that tickled the mandarin palate.

Captain Kendrick (who originally commanded the Columbia but remained in Pacific waters with the sloop Lady Washington), discovered about the year 1791 that Hawaii produced sandalwood, an article in great demand at Canton.

Captain Vancouver found on the Island of Kauai, in March, 1792, an Englishman, a Welshman and an Irishman whom Kendrick had left there the previous October, to collect pearls and sandalwood against his return.

Practically every vessel that visited the North Pacific in the closing years of the 18th century stopped at Hawai‘i for refreshment and recreation; but it was not until the opening years of the 19th that the sandalwood business became a recognized branch of trade.

The imports at Canton of that fragrant commodity in American vessels rose from 900 piculs (of 133 1/3 pounds each) in 1804-05 to 19,036 piculs in 1811-12.

Sandalwood, geography and fresh provisions made the Islands a vital link in a closely articulated trade route between Boston, the Northwest Coast, and Canton.

Nathan Winship, Wm. Heath Davis, and Jonathan Winship, Jr made a deal with Kamehameha for sandalwood and cotton in 1812. One of the Winships was residing at Honolulu when the missionaries landed, on April 19, 1820, and placed his house at their disposal.

“We were sheltered in three native-built houses, kindly off’red us by Messrs Winship, Lewis and Navarro, somewhat scattered in the midst of an irregular village or town of thatched huts, of 3000 or 4000 inhabitants.”

“After the fatigue of removing from the brig to the shore, Captain Pigot of New York considerately and kindly gave us, at evening, a hospitable cup of tea, truly acceptable to poor pilgrims in our circumstances, so far from the sympathies of home.”

“As soon as the bustle of debarking was over, and our grass-thatched cottages made habitable, we erected an altar unto the Omnipresent God, and in unison with the first detachment of the mission, presented him our offerings of thanksgiving and praise”. (Hiram Bingham) (This was the first communion service on Hawaiian soil.) (Morison)

A new era opened in 1820 with the arrival of the first missionaries, the first whalers and the opening of a new reign. It was the missionaries who brought Hawai‘i in touch with a better side of New England civilization than that represented by the trading vessels and their crews.

But without the trader, the missionary would not have come. The commercial relations between Massachusetts and Hawai‘i form the solid background of American expansion in the Pacific.

At the same time, the Hawaiian market for American goods was rapidly increasing, owing to the improved standards of living.

As early as 1823 there were four mercantile houses in the Islands: Hunnewell’s, Jones’s, ‘Nor’west John DeWolf’s (from Bristol, Rhode Island) and another from New York (possibly that of John Jacob Astor & Son, represented by John Ebbets (Kuykendall.)) (Morison)

“Their storehouses are abundantly furnished with goods in demand by the islanders; and at them, most articles contained in common retail shops and groceries in America, may be purchased.”

“The whole trade of the four probably amounts to one hundred thousand dollars a year – sandal wood principally, and specie, being the returns for imported manufactures.”

“Each of these trading houses usually has a ship or brig in the harbor, or at some one of the islands; besides others that touch to make repairs and obtain refreshments, in their voyages between the north-west, Mexican and South American coasts, and China.”

“The agents and clerks of these establishments, and the supercargoes and officers of the vessels attached to them, with transient visiters in ships holding similar situations, form the most respectable class of foreigners with whom we are called to have intercourse.” (Stewart)

The New England whalers, so much complained of by the China traders, brought them new business by creating a local market for ships’ stores, chandlery, etc.; and by giving them return freights of oil and whalebone.

About 1829 the Islands were visited annually by nineteen American vessels engaged in the Northwest fur, South American, China and Manila trades, and by one hundred whalers.

The little community of respectable traders and missionaries, with a disreputable fringe of deserters from merchantment and whalers, was so predominantly Bostonian that ‘Boston’ acquired the same connotation in Hawaii as along the Northwest Coast. It stood for the whole United States.

Hawaii had, in fact, become an outpost of New England. The foreign settlement at Honolulu, with its frame houses shipped around the Horn, haircloth furniture, orthodox meeting house built of coral blocks, and New England Sabbath, was as Yankee as a suburb of Boston.

(The bulk of this post is from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Samuel Eliot Morison presented the paper to the October, 1920 meeting of the Society.)

“Massachusetts has a history of many moods, every one of which may be traced in the national character of America. By chance, rather than design, this short strip of uninviting coast-line became the seat of a great experiment in colonization, self-government, and religion.”

“For a generation, Massachusetts shared with her elder sister, Virginia, leadership in the American Revolution. For another generation, with her off spring Connecticut, she opposed a static social system to the ferment of revolutionary France.”

“With the world peace of 1815 she quickened into new life, harnessed her waterfalls to machine industry, bred statesmen, seers, and poets, generated radical and revolutionary thought.”

“For two hundred years the Bible was the spiritual, the sea the material sustenance of Massachusetts. The pulse of her life-story, like the surf on her coast-line, beat once with the nervous crash of storm-driven waves on granite rock; but now with the soothing pour of ground-swell on golden sands.”

Captain John Smith, in 1614, was the first Englishman to examine the Massachusetts coast, and to give it that name. (Morison)

“After Jamestown, Smith pushed the English to settle the northeast, identifying Plymouth as a suitable harbor four years before the Pilgrims landed there. He coined the region ‘New England’ in 1616.” (Smithsonian)

Shortly thereafter (1620,) the Plymouth Colony arrived. “The Pilgrim fathers sailed with high hopes and a burning faith, but with few preparations and no clear idea of how to make a living on the Atlantic coast.” (Morison)

“In 1630, ten years after its settlement, the Plymouth Colony contained but three hundred white people. At that time the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, founded only at the end of 1628, had over two thousand in habitants.”

“Within thirteen years the numbers had reached sixteen thousand, more than the rest of the English colonies combined; and the characteristic maritime activities of Massachusetts – fishing, shipping, and West India trading – were already commenced.”

“God performed no miracle on the New England soil. He gave the sea. … The gravelly, boulder-strewn soil was back-breaking to clear, and afforded small increase to unscientific farmers. No staple of ready sale in England, like Virginia tobacco or Canadian beaver, could be produced or readily obtained.”

“Massachusetts went to sea, then, not of choice, but of necessity.”

“These colonial merchants lived well, with a spacious brick mansion in Boston and a country seat at Milton Hill, Cambridge, or as far afield as Harvard and Hopkinton, where great house parties were given. They were fond of feasts and pageants”.

“The backbone of maritime Massachusetts, however, was its middle class; the captains and mates of vessels, the master builders and shipwrights, the ropemakers, sailmakers, and skilled mechanics of many different trades, without whom the merchants were nothing.”

“Boston became the headquarters of the American Revolution largely because the policy of George III threatened her maritime interests.”

“Then came the worst economic depression Massachusetts has ever known. The double readjustment from a war to a peace basis, and from a colonial to an independent basis, caused hardship throughout the colonies.”

“It worked havoc with the delicate adjustment of fishing, seafaring, and shipbuilding by which Massachusetts was accustomed to gain her living. By 1786, the exports of Virginia had more than regained their pre-Revolutionary figures.”

“At the same date the exports of Massachusetts were only one-fourth of what they had been twelve years earlier. … (However,) By 1787 the West-India trade was in a measure restored.”

“Some subtle instinct, or maybe thwarted desire of Elizabethan ancestors who, seeking in vain the Northwest Passage, founded an empire on the barrier, was pulling the ships of Massachusetts east by west, into seas where no Yankee had ever ventured.”

“Off the roaring breakers of Cape Horn, in the vast spaces of the Pacific, on savage coasts and islands, and in the teeming marts of the Far East, the intrepid shipmasters and adventurous youth of New England were reclaiming their salt sea heritage.”

“One bright summer afternoon in 1790 saw the close of a great adventure. On August 9, Boston town heard a salute of thirteen guns down-harbor. The ship Columbia, Captain Robert Gray, with the first American ensign to girdle the globe snapping at her peak, was greeting the Castle after an absence of three years.”

“Coming to anchor in the inner harbor, she fired another federal salute of thirteen guns, which a ‘great concourse of citizens assembled on the various wharfs returned with three huzzas and a hearty welcome.’”

“A rumor ran through the narrow streets that a native of ‘Owyhee’ – a Sandwich-Islander – was on board; and before the day was out, curious Boston was gratified with a sight of him, marching after Captain Gray to call on Governor Hancock.”

“Clad in a feather cloak of golden suns set in flaming scarlet, that came halfway down his brown legs; crested with a gorgeous feather helmet shaped like a Greek warrior’s, this young Hawaiian moved up State Street like a living flame.”

“The Columbia had logged 41,899 miles since her departure from Boston on September 30, 1787. Her voyage was not remarkable as a feat of navigation; Magellan and Drake had done the trick centuries before, under far more hazardous conditions.”

“It was the practical results that counted. The Columbia’s first voyage began the Northwest fur trade, which enabled the merchant adventurers of Boston to tap the vast reservoir of wealth in China.”

“The most successful vessels in the Northwest fur trade were small, well-built brigs and ships of one hundred to two hundred and fifty tons burthen (say sixty- five to ninety feet long), constructed in the ship yards from the Kennebec to Scituate. Larger vessels were too difficult to work through the intricacies of the Northwest Coast.”

To obtain fresh provisions and prevent scurvy, the Nor’west traders broke their voyage at least twice; at the Cape Verde Islands, the Falklands, sometimes Galapagos for a giant tortoise, and invariably Hawaii.”

“The Sandwich Islands proved an ideal spot to refresh a scorbutic crew, and even to complete the cargo. Captain Kendrick (who plied between Canton and the Coast in the Lady Washington until his death in 1794) discovered sandalwood, an article much in demand at Canton, growing wild on the Island of Kauai.”

“A vigorous trade with the native chiefs in this fragrant commodity was started by Boston fur-traders in ‘the Islands’; leading to more Hawaiian visits to New England”. (Most here is from Morison)

Captain James Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. (State Library, New South Wales)

“Cook had chosen his subordinates well or had been lucky. The officers of the third voyage were a remarkably intelligent group of men.” (Captain Cook Society)

“All the great remaining voyages of the eighteenth century drew on Cook’s officers. Bligh, Portlock, Vancouver, Colnett, Riou, and Hergest all got their commands and served with great distinction. These men then passed on their skills to a second generation of men such as Flinders and Broughton.” (Mackay, Captain Cook Society)

George Dixon, an armourer in the Royal Navy per a warrant dated April 16, 1776, joined the Discovery and also sailed for the Pacific on Captain James Cook’s third voyage of exploration.

As an armourer Dixon was a skilled mechanic, with the rating of petty officer first-class, whose duty it was to assist the gunner in keeping the ship’s arms in order. The Discovery was at King George’s Sound (Nootka Sound, B.C.) in March and April 1778 and touched at other places along the northwest coast before returning to England in 1780.

“In the early periods of navigation, it does not seem that the extension of commerce was altogether the aim of the enterprizing adventurer; and though generally patronized by the reigning powers, where these designs originated …”

“… yet, a thirst after glory, and a boundless ambition of adding to the strength and extent of territory, on one hand, or a rapacious desire of accumulating wealth, or, perhaps the same of making discoveries, on the other, appear to have been the only object in view.” (Dixon)

Cook’s voyage had initiated the maritime fur trade in sea otter pelts with China. (Gould) “(D)uring the late Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean, besides every scientific advantage which might be derived from it, a new and inexhaustible mine of wealth was laid open to future navigators, by trading furs of the most valuable kind, on the North West Coast of America.” (Dixon)

“This discovery, though obviously a source from which immense riches might be expected, and communicated, no doubt, to numbers in the year 1780, was not immediately attended to.”

“Who the gentlemen were that first embarked in the fur-trade, is perhaps not generally known, though it is certain they were not hardy enough to send vessels in that employ directly from England; for we find, that the first vessel which engaged in this new trade was fitted out from China: she was a brig of sixty tons, commanded by a Captain Hanna, who left the Typa in April, 1785.” (Dixon)

Then, in the spring of 1785 Dixon and Nathaniel Portlock, a shipmate in the Discovery, became partners in Richard Cadman Etches and Company, commonly called the King George’s Sound Company, one of several commercial associations formed to conduct trade.

Portlock was given command of the King George and of the expedition; Dixon commanded the Queen Charlotte. A licence to trade on the northwest coast was purchased from the South Sea Company, which held the monopoly for the Pacific coast.

William Beresford, the trader assigned to the expedition, wrote that Dixon and Portlock had been chosen for their ability as navigators, their knowledge of the Indians and of the best trading spots, and because they were …

“… men of feeling and humanity, and pay the most strict attention to the health of their ships companies, a circumstance of the utmost consequence in a voyage of such length.”

“These gentlemen were … not only … able navigators, but (having been on this voyage with Captain Cook) they well knew what parts of the continent were likely to afford us the best trade; and also form a tolerable area of the temper and disposition of the natives”. (Beresford to Hamlen; Dixon)

The vessels left London on August 29, 1785 and arrived at Cook Inlet, Alaska the next July. There they traded with the Indians before sailing to winter in the Hawaiian Islands.

In the spring of 1787 they sailed to Prince William Sound, Alaska, where they met another British trader, John Meares, whose ship had been iced in. Dixon and Portlock lent aid but exacted from Meares, who was trading illegally within the bounds of the South Sea Company’s monopoly, a bond not to trade on the coast.

From Prince William Sound, Dixon, having separated as planned from Portlock, sailed south to trade. He came across a large archipelago, which he named the Queen Charlotte Islands (BC.)

Dixon sailed along the western shores of the islands, named Cape St James, and then went up their eastern coasts as far as Skidegate. Along the way he purchased a large number of sea otter pelts.

Since Portlock failed to appear at Nootka, Dixon steered for the Sandwich Islands and China. He sold his furs there and then returned to England in September 1788. (Gould)

It has been suggested that Dixon taught navigation at Gosport and wrote The navigator’s assistant, published in 1791. There are no references to him after that date. A skilled navigator and successful trader, Dixon rose from obscurity to become an important figure in the history of the northwest coast. (Gough)

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